(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Lawyers for a man arrested when he was a teenager for attempting to provide support to ISIS have asked a judge for a relatively lenient sentence on the grounds that FBI informants encouraged their client’s terroristic behavior.
The defendant, Alexander Scott Mercurio, was arrested in April 2024 when he was 18 years old, after the FBI targeted him for years in an investigation that involved at least three undercover informants and an undercover agent. He was charged with attempting to provide material support and resources to ISIS.
According to Mercurio’s charging papers, the FBI discovered the teenager when it was investigating a terrorism-financing network in 2021. The FBI discovered that Mercurio—who would have been 15 or 16 at the time—was talking to two individuals who were providing funds for ISIS and its Afghanistan-based affiliate, ISIS-K.
"For nearly two years, Alexander Mercurio’s best friend was a government informant," lawyers for a then-teenage ISIS supporter said in a sentencing memo yesterday.
The lawyers are seeking a lower sentence, 9 years, on the grounds that FBI informants "added fuel to a smoldering… https://t.co/BgFwPFLUAq pic.twitter.com/B2YQFKZVv5
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) November 5, 2026
In July 2022, an FBI informant who had assumed a dead ISIS fighter’s identity began communicating with Mercurio. The two became “best friends,” according to Mercurio’s lawyers.
“For nearly two years, Alexander Mercurio’s best friend was a government informant. Starting when he was just seventeen years old Mr. Mercurio spent his days holed away in his basement bedroom, talking with his best friend about increasingly radical terrorist ideologies,” defense attorneys said in their sentencing memo, filed on Wednesday.
“Together they brainstormed a plan that was as horrific as it was unlikely to succeed: a suicidal attack on local churches using his father’s firearms and an untested improvised explosive/flamethrower.”
According to the charging papers, another informant targeted Mercurio in person on Feb. 16, 2024, entering his father’s office and asking to take him out to lunch. The informant would give Mercurio an ISIS flag and take a picture of him posed in front of it.
The FBI informants went as far as to rent a fake apartment “where they had elaborate discussions regarding his faith, ISIS, jihad, family, and the terror plot,” the defense lawyers said.
The lawyers argued that their client likely would not have proceeded in his crimes if not for pressure from the informants.
“To be clear, Mr. Mercurio was certainly guilty of attempted material support between 2022 to 2023, but the use of informants added fuel to a smoldering fire by targeting a vulnerable youth and providing no intervention prior to arrest,” the lawyers said.
Mercurio’s sentencing is scheduled for Tuesday. The Justice Department is seeking 18 years in prison for him.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
